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METRO VANCOUVER — With Milt Stegall behind him, Geroy Simon now can take aim at the three players on the NFL’s all-time receiving yards list ahead of him -- Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens and Isaac Bruce.

With a total of 15,192 yards, the CFL’s No. 1 all-time receiver is only 16 yards behind Bruce, who retired in 2009. And there’s a good chance the G-Man will pass the NFL’s No. 3 reception yards leader early Friday night at BC Place Stadium against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a game in which Simon and his family will again be honoured, this time before kickoff.

If Simon feels the constant pressure of being larger than life, it’s no more than the dare-to-be-great comparisons heaped on Mike Benevides, in his first season as head coach of the Lions.

Almost lost in the hoopla of Simon’s record-setting night last Friday -- he had five catches for 105 yards against Winnipeg, the last one resulting in a 10-minute, in-game delay to mark his historic accomplishment -- was Benevides’ first win.

The 44-year-old head coach is chasing the outsized shadow of his boss, GM Wally Buono, who went into coaching retirement last December with a CFL record 254 wins.

Benevides is 253 behind him how, but closing fast. Buono was 40 when he took over the Calgary Stampeders, yet his first win didn’t come until his second game. His first ended in a 38-38 overtime tie with the Lions, on July 13, 1990.

“Actually, Mike’s ahead of my pace,” Buono said Tuesday, as the Lions practised for Friday’s game. “My first game wasn’t even a win. Last play of the game, Doug Flutie [then with the Lions] threw a pass to Ray Alexander in the end zone. He lays out and scores. We went through two, five-minute overtime periods -- that was the way it was then -- and we couldn’t score.” (The Stamps made up for that stumble by winning their next four in a row).

Still, for Benevides, the standard is Wally Buono, as it is for every CFL coach with a whistle and clipboard. And it meant a lot to the younger man to have his personal milestone recognized by his mentor.

“Wally was in the room, as he usually is, and he presented me with a game ball,” Benevides said. “It was very nice for him to do that. It will go in a trophy case someday, somewhere. But it was Geroy’s night. It falls in line with my philosophy: It’s not about me; it’s about team. It was a great night, not only for the record, but the alumni, and the championship banners [representatives from B.C.’s six Grey Cup teams took part in a pre-game ceremony]. But it certainly was not about me.”

While there’s a tendency to portray Benevides-Buono as the same buy-one-get-two, Frick and Frack, Brian Burke-Dave Nonis tandem, Benevides has made a conscious effort to distance himself from his predecessor by allowing his own personality to take root.

“I’ve got to be true to myself, and all that I believe in,” Benevides said. “What I heard from them [other CFL coaches] was, ‘Be yourself. do it your way.’ It didn’t matter whether it was Bob O’Billovich, Jim Barker or Rich Stubler -- they all said ‘Do it your way.’ I know what I want and, so far, our players seem to understand what that is. It’s not a conscious effort to be different [than Wally]. It’s a conscious effort to be myself.”

Stubler, the Lions’ 63-year-old defensive coordinator, admitted he did not assert his personality enough when he replaced the iconic Michael (Pinball) Clemons as the Argos’ head coach in 2008. He lasted just 10 games.

“You have to stamp it as ‘your team’ early on,” Stubler said. “I didn’t stamp it as mine early enough in Toronto. That makes it difficult. It’s difficult enough for Mike replacing Wally, after winning the Grey Cup. Mike knew that. And he has his own set of values and personality. Benny’s an observer and he’s learned from a lot of people.”

With the Lions ahead 16-10 in the third quarter, Benevides had his team attempt an on-side kick against the Blue Bombers. It proved to be successful. What it also demonstrated, perhaps, is that Benevides is more inclined to be attack-minded and adventurous than his predecessor.

“Wally, when he was younger, did the same things that Benny’s doing,” Stubler said. “As you get older, you have a different view of how things function. Coaches become more concerned about the negative aspect than the positive aspect. Mike believes in positive action, and he believes our kids can execute it. That’s his personality, and it’s a personality that’s fun to be around.”

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